Sunday, January 25, 2009

Admittedly, I haven't read "Snark: It’s Mean, It’s Personal, and It’s Ruining Our Conversation", by David Denby, but then he hasn't read my website. Ha. Just kidding. I've only read reviews of the book, like This One at The eXile, but I do know a thing or too about snark and so I can give a general perspective on why I like snark and why I think it's a good thing. Basically, I implemented a pro-snark policy a few months after the site started (really, I formally made the decision to put really biting, offensive, potentially libelous, humor on the blog), because of the complete blandness of mainstream political coverage.

Mainstream political coverage either on the news or in most papers stemming from the Clinton era on, with a particular emphasis on the post-9/11 age, promoted the idea that a non-conflict oriented toned down politics of consensus was the way to go. Anything that went beyond that was unreasonable. The idea carried over to today even in reporting on humanitarian tragedies like Gaza, where instead of pointing out the obvious and overwhelming inequalities of losses there the media tries to balance the carnage visited on the Palestinians with the much less traumatic pain felt by Israelis. Because if you didn't point out that, yes, Israelis have been hit by homemade rockets launched from Gaza you'd be ideologically biased. Well, I decide to say fuck that, fuck consensus, fuck being nice, fuck being polite, and instead endeavored and still endeavor to write things in an offensive tone that often mimics the level of offensiveness of what I'm writing about. I see no need to put lipstick on a pig, so to speak, when talking about non-entities cum war criminals like George W. Bush, and instead want to give back in rhetoric something that minces no words in describing the level of inhumanity that they've visited onto the world.

This leads to a lot of snark. But a snark filled world is superior to a world of bland consensus where the abhorrent is buried under the idea of false neutrality.